From this time Pilate sought to release him; but the Jews cried out saying, If thou releasest this [man], thou art not a friend to Caesar. Every one making himself a king speaks against Caesar.
Pilate has just heard that his authority is not his own. From that point he tries to set Jesus free — until one sentence from the crowd stops him. That sentence is not a legal argument. It is a threat aimed at his career. It raises the question this trial turns on: when truth and self-interest collide, which one does a man serve?
The Lord had just told Pilate that his authority came from above. Those words left a mark. Pilate now tried to release Him, and one writer reads that as a sign of a stirred conscience.
These were the last words of Christ that Pilate heard from His lips. The next time they meet, the governor will stand before the One he was about to condemn to death, and hear the Lord's judgment about him. These last words did impress him. What prisoner had ever spoken to him like that? … The words of Christ, "the greater sin," seemed to strike home to that man of the world. Conscience may be stifled for a time, but conscience has a voice.
His accusers changed tactics. They aimed at something closer to Pilate than justice.
The Lord's words shake Pilate more than ever, and he again seeks to release Him. But he is not master of himself, and so cannot be master of others. The Jews know the man, and they know their opportunity. They bring an argument against him that makes him like clay in their hands at once. God is a possibility, but Rome is a certainty, and nearer at hand.
The charge that Jesus made Himself a king against Caesar was a tool, not a conviction.
Conscience was clearly pressing him, so Pilate looks for some way to release the Lord. But the Jews are ready with another weapon. They tell him that letting Him go would show no friendship to Caesar. They claim the Lord had made Himself a king and was therefore speaking against Caesar. In fact this meant nothing to the Jews themselves. But they gain their deceitful end by making Pilate afraid for his own position and standing with Caesar. This overrides his conscience.
Pilate had reason to dread a report reaching Rome. The threat found a weakness already there.
Pilate knew his own government had not always been upright. He feared the Jews would report him to the emperor. "The fear of man lays a snare" (Prov. 29:25). So he prepared to give in to their wishes.
Another writer names what Pilate valued most, and shows his accusers shared the same fault.
The Jewish leaders themselves "loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God" (John 12:43). Pilate had far more regard for the praise of Caesar than for judgment according to truth and justice.
The sentence forces a choice between two loyalties. Commentators press that choice on the reader as a live question, not old history.
Are there not many here in the same moral position as Pilate? Your conscience touches you. You would like to be on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ… You would like to stand up for Him, to be His friend, to be on His side. But then there is the world. You cannot give it up. You cannot break with it. You cannot part company with its friendship… They cannot give up their Caesar.
Pilate held his office at Caesar's pleasure. That dependence bred fear.
Do you know who Caesar was? He was the Roman emperor. And who was Pilate? His delegate. Pilate depended on Caesar; he was supported by the world. And I would like to say this to you: in exactly the proportion that you are supported by the world, you are afraid of it. Work that through, and see whether it is not true.
The same moment exposes both sides of the courtroom, each for a different reason.
How powerless the struggle to do right is in a person who loves the world, never judges his own sins, and does not know grace! … Pilate preferred the friendship of the world to the Son of God. In the same way, the Jews saw no beauty in Him that they should admire Him. Both played their part in crucifying Him.
- Conscience — Christ's words about "the greater sin" reached Pilate. He tried to release Him. Conscience has a voice even in a hard man.
- Weapon — his accusers dropped legal argument and went for his career. God is a possibility; Rome is a certainty, and nearer at hand.
- Pretence — their claimed loyalty to Caesar meant nothing to them. It was only a lever to make Pilate fear for his own position.
- Fear — Pilate's own record would not stand a review. So he valued Caesar's praise above true judgment. The fear of man lays a snare.
- Choice — Caesar's friend or Jesus' friend. Pilate chose the world's friendship over the Son of God. Anyone who loves the world still faces that choice.
Pilate therefore, having heard these words, led Jesus out and sat down upon [the] judgment-seat, at a place called Pavement, but in Hebrew Gabbatha;
The crowd has just warned Pilate that letting Jesus go would make him no friend of Caesar. This verse shows what that threat did: a governor who had three times found no fault now takes his official seat to pass sentence.
Pilate's own conscience had been pushing him toward release. What silenced it was not new evidence but a calculation about his career.
Conscience was clearly pressing him, so Pilate looks for some way to release the Lord. But the Jews are ready with another weapon. They tell him that such an act would show no friendship to Caesar... In fact, this meant nothing to the Jews themselves. But they gain their deceitful end by making Pilate afraid for his own position and his standing with Caesar. This overrides his conscience.
Pilate had toyed with the trial. Now the trial handles him, and his old question comes back in a new form:
"Pilate's playing with the situation," observes Lange, "is now past; now the situation plays with him. First he said — not asked — What is truth? Now his frightened heart, to which the emperor's favour is the supreme law of life, says, What is justice?"
Sitting down was not rest or ceremony. It was the legal act that announced a verdict was coming. John also gives a time for it, and his clock runs differently from Mark's:
When Pilate brought Jesus out to make his last appeal, he took his place in the judgment seat on the Pavement. That showed he was about to pass judgment in the case... The solution appears to be this. John, dealing with what happened before the Roman judge, uses the Roman reckoning, which was similar to ours. Mark reckons by Jewish custom. If this is so, all is simple. It was about 6 a.m. when Pilate's examination drew to a close, and about 9 a.m. when Jesus was crucified.
Some have asked who actually sat down, since the Greek word could in theory mean Pilate seated his prisoner there. The usage of the verb settles it:
Pilate now took his seat, it would seem for the first time. Some would treat ekathizen as "seated" — that is, "Jesus" — but nowhere else does this verb take an object.
The verse gives the place two names. Each one describes a different feature of the same spot.
A place attached to the judgement-hall, where the judge gave sentence, speakers made speeches, and so on... The floor of this place was no doubt made of mosaic stones, and that is why John 19:13 calls it the PAVEMENT. In Hebrew they called it GABBATHA, which means elevated, or a raised platform.
This kind of floor belonged to Roman authority, and travelled with it:
In later Greek to lithostroton meant mosaic work laid in the floors of buildings, public or private. Above all it named the platform where a Roman officer sat to carry out his office. Suetonius tells us that Julius Caesar made a habit of carrying such a mosaic with him on his campaigns.
At the judgment seat both sides show what they are. Their aims were opposite; their state was the same.
Pilate, though convinced of His innocence and impressed by His majesty and dignity, prefers the friendship of the world to the Son of God. So Jew and Gentile join together in crucifying the Lord of glory. As it has been said, "Pilate and the Jews were wholly opposed in their thoughts and wishes; but God was not in the thoughts of one more than the others."
One day the places will swap. The Man who stood before that platform will sit on the seat of judgment:
A Man will sit on the throne of judgment at the judgment seat of God. He is the Man whom men have despised and treated as nothing... What shame it will be for Pilate and Herod, before whom the Lord once stood. They will stand before the judgment seat of God and see on it the Man they let their soldiers mock and treat as nothing.
Yet none of this slipped out of God's hand. Pilate could go no further than God allowed:
But God was over all, and Pilate could do nothing that day except as permitted from above. God was not responsible for the black flood of hatred pouring out from the hearts of the Jews. Nor was He responsible for the lesser sin of the wavering judge, who was ready to stoop to any injustice to save his face. But He did make Himself responsible for the channel in which the sin of Jew and Gentile flowed.
- Pressure. The threat about Caesar's friendship changed no evidence. It made Pilate fear for his own position, and that fear silenced his conscience.
- Seat. Sitting down on the judgment seat announced that sentence was coming. By Roman reckoning it was about 6 a.m., three hours before the crucifixion.
- Place. "The Pavement" names the mosaic floor of a Roman court. "Gabbatha" names the raised platform it stood on. Two names, one spot.
- Verdict. There Jew and Gentile stood exposed together. They wanted opposite things, but God was in the thoughts of neither.
- Reversal. The Man judged on that platform will Himself sit as Judge. Those who condemned Him will stand before Him. Even their sin ran only in the channel God allowed.
(now it was [the] preparation of the passover; it was about the sixth hour;) and he says to the Jews, Behold your king!
Pilate has run out of ways to release Jesus, so he sits on the judgment platform and brings the prisoner out. John pauses to fix the day and the hour, then records the taunt the governor threw at the crowd.
Mark says Jesus was crucified at the third hour, yet here Pilate is still speaking at about the sixth. Commentators explain this by two ways of counting the day.
There is an apparent clash between the time given here and the time in Mark 15:25, which has caused much discussion. We cannot help asking, If He was crucified at the third hour, how is it that Pilate is said to deliver his sentence about the sixth hour? The solution seems to be that our writer, dealing with what happened before the Roman judge, uses the Roman reckoning, which was similar to ours, while Mark reckons by Jewish custom. If this is so, all is simple. It was about 6 a.m. when Pilate's examination drew to a close, and about 9 a.m. when Jesus was crucified. The "preparation of the Passover" was the 24 hours starting at 6 the evening before. Into that 24 hours were crowded the most tremendous events in time, or indeed in eternity.
Another writer ties the Roman clock to the date of John's Gospel.
It is generally accepted that John's gospel was the last book of Scripture written — say about thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jews counted a day from about six one evening to about six the next. The Romans count from midnight to midnight, as we do now. If John wrote that late, and if the Jewish way had by then largely given way to the Roman way, all thought of a discrepancy in these passages of Scripture disappears.
The phrase does not mean a day spent getting ready for the feast.
The expression "the preparation" arose first from the custom of preparing food and so on for the sabbath day, and referred to the sixth day of the week. This particular preparation was that of the Passover — not a preparation for the Passover, but of the Passover. It was in fact the very day of the Passover, which began the previous evening.
The date was not an accident of the calendar.
If we turn now to John 19:14 we find a still more blessed explanation, one full of the deepest instruction for our hearts. You will notice it is not the preparation for the Passover, but of the Passover... For fifteen centuries the preparation day had pointed on to this day. Jesus, the Lamb of God, had presented Himself at this very Passover, when the Passover day fell on the day before the sabbath. Sadly, the Jews did not understand it.
Pilate's words are a jab at the men who have cornered him — and a jab he half suspects is accurate.
Pilate, irritated by his own defeat, speaks this way, "Behold your King," to irritate the Jews further, though he is himself afraid that his words are true.
The governor is protecting himself. God is doing something else through the same words.
At last, fearing to be accused of disloyalty to Caesar, he turns with contempt to the Jews, saying, "Behold your King" — acting, though unconsciously, under the hand of God, to bring out that memorable word from their lips, their condemnation and their calamity to this day: "We have no king but Caesar."
The same scene shows the worst in man and the best in God.
The last word of unbelief that had turned away from God passes their lips and closes Pilate's mouth... never such hatred and unrighteousness as on the world's part toward Him; never such love and righteousness as on God's part toward the world because of Him.
The crowd refused the King shown to them at the sixth hour. One writer looks ahead to the day this same Person appears again, on very different terms.
About the sixth hour on the day of the crucifixion Pilate brought Jesus out and said to the crowd in Jerusalem, "Behold your King!" (John 19:14). This provoked the violent cry, "Away with Him, crucify Him." The prophet sees the same wonderful Person, but coming in the splendour of Deity with a "strong hand." This will be good news indeed, after the painful display of sin and utter weakness on the part of men.
- Hour — John reports a Roman hearing by the Roman clock, about 6 a.m.; Mark uses the Jewish clock for the crucifixion at 9 a.m. Commentators treat the difference as two ways of telling time, not a contradiction.
- Day — It was the preparation of the Passover, the Passover day itself, starting at 6 the evening before. Those twenty-four hours held the most tremendous events in time, and in eternity.
- Lamb — Fifteen centuries of preparation days pointed to this one. On it the Lamb of God presented Himself at the feast that pictured Him.
- King — Pilate spoke to wound the crowd, half afraid his taunt was true. God used his mouth to draw out the words that condemned the nation.
- Return — The King they refused at the sixth hour will come again in the splendour of Deity. That will be good news indeed.
But they cried out, Take [him] away, take [him] away, crucify him. Pilate says to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
The trial reaches its last word here. Pilate calls Jesus their King, and the chief priests name a foreign emperor instead. That one answer settles what the nation thinks of the One God sent.
Pilate aimed his contempt at the crowd, but a greater hand drew out their reply.
Pilate tried to get Him out of their fury. At last he was afraid of being accused of disloyalty to Caesar. So he turned to the Jews with contempt and said, "Behold your King." He did not know it, but he was acting under the hand of God. His words brought that memorable word out of their lips, their condemnation and their disaster right up to today: "We have no king but Caesar." They denied their Messiah. The fatal word, which called down the judgment of God, was now spoken; and Pilate hands Jesus over to them.
The strange thing is who said it. The chief priests chose Rome — and they did not even mean it.
They spoke the word that rejected Christ. Their loyalty to Rome was a lie. Their mad guilt was plain: they got rid of the Messiah and God Himself and all their faith and hope. The Jews hated being under Caesar. They admitted neither his right to rule nor their own sin, which was the reason he ruled over them. But they hated the Messiah more — not their idea of Him, but the reality according to God. They had not a thought or a feeling, not a word or a way or a purpose, in common with Jesus. This was because He brought God near to them in grace, and because He showed man in perfect dependence and obedience to God. Their will, with a bad conscience, rejected both.
Another writer reads their tone the same way — that they would say anything at that moment to get their King killed:
In cold, determined hypocrisy they answer that they have no king but Caesar. In fact they hated Caesar's rule, but they would not say this to Pilate: just now they would say anything to persuade Pilate to kill their King.
Pilate is not the innocent party. The verse catches the governor and the priests in the same net.
Pilate gives in to their shouting: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" The Jews see nothing in Him to make them want Him. Pilate is sure of His innocence and impressed by His majesty and dignity, yet he prefers the friendship of the world to the Son of God. So Jew and Gentile join in crucifying the Lord of glory. As someone has said, "Pilate and the Jews were wholly opposed in their thoughts and wishes; but God was not in the thoughts of one more than the others." These two verses sum up the wickedness of Jew and Gentile. The Jews seal their doom by rejecting their Messiah outright, for they say, "We have no king but Caesar." This is the Jews publicly turning away from God. The Gentile fails completely in government. He hands over to be crucified One in whom he has three times said there is no fault.
This rejection did not begin at the trial. One writer traces it back to the moment Jesus arrived:
So the King has come — the true King, the one everything waits for, the one everything still waits for: for He came only to be rejected... He is worshipped by those far away, but when He comes to His own, they have no heart for Him... There is only the announcement that He has come. At once we see what they later declare openly: they have "no king but Caesar." So there is nothing for it but to leave them to Caesar.
Pilate refused to change what he had written, and commentators see God's purpose in that refusal — and in what still lies ahead for Israel.
God, no doubt, had a purpose in all this. The nation of Israel refused to own their King then. But at Christ's second coming it will yet be their joy to know that they have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
One writer sets the believer's confession against what the world chose.
What did the world do? It crucified the Saviour and threw Him out. They said, "We will not have this Man to reign over us." The believer says the opposite when he confesses the Lord Jesus: "I will have this Man to reign over me." In other words, he reverses the world's verdict. He takes issue with the world, goes straight against its choice, and like a living fish swims upstream.
- The claim. Pilate says "your King." The priests answer with Caesar — the fatal word that denied their Messiah and every hope they had.
- The lie. They hated Roman rule; they hated Christ more, because He brought God near in grace and exposed their will.
- The verdict. Priest and governor fail together. The nation publicly turns from God, and the governor condemns a man he three times called faultless.
- The consequence. They chose Caesar, so God left them to Caesar.
- The reversal. The nation will yet own Him at His coming, and every believer now says what they refused: this Man shall reign over me.